Re: st: RE: Listing the first 5 observations

That gives a sample of all ages, by the sound of it far more than is wanted.
Nick
On Wed, Aug 29, 2012 at 3:29 PM, Cohen, Elan <cohened@upmc.edu> wrote:
> How about:
>
> bys age (random): l if _n<=5
>
Damian Finlayson
> I am trying to randomly select a number of observations according a
> set criteria.
>
> Say I have 3 variables: var1, var2 and random. Var1 consists purely
> of unique values (such as names). Var 2 has groups/categories (e.g.
> age). Random consists of unique random numbers.
>
> I would like to get stata to sort each category (age) by a random
> number and then list the first 5 names for a given age say 49.
>
> The command I am trying to use is:
>
> list var1 if age == 49
>
> but I cannot seem to amend this command so that only the first 5
> observations (as per the random number) are listed. If I use in 1/5
> it does not work as the first observation for age 49 could be the 53
> observation the second at 114 and so on. If I ask for all
> observations I could end up with thousands of names being listed.
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